


Purple Drenched Lillies

by wasabiandi



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 7S7V AU, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Chastity, Gen, M/M, Other, Please Read Before Proceeding, Religious Themes, Sins and Virtues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 18:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18429257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasabiandi/pseuds/wasabiandi
Summary: Sometimes, when times are rough, people need something to fall back upon. Jacob dedicated himself to that something, so much so it shaped his entire being. He focused on his virtues, and yet left his flaws open - easy to manipulate, and easy to control.{Based on an ask blog.}





	Purple Drenched Lillies

**Author's Note:**

> Important Disclaimer in End Notes

  The incense still lingered on his flesh, the pin pricks in his fingers still bled, and his body still hung heavy from exhaustion. It was unusual for Jacob to be wandering around town this late at night, where the only noise that accompanied his quiet footsteps came from Dave’s old pub and the nature that stalked the Australian Outback. He wouldn’t normally have hung around the church until so late, sister Claire always berated him for overworking himself, but he had confessions to make - and places to avoid. He’d rather be making tapestries than be elsewhere, under the careful guidance and soft spoken false assurances the clergy always offered. He’d rather help the nuns out with their risky maintenance, he wouldn’t forgive himself for any harm that came their way. He’d rather be amongst these women than anywhere else. He refused to go home.

 

  Going home meant running into his mother and listening to her subtle remarks about how much of a golden child he was - how much she relied on him, and yet how much she hated it. It meant having to quietly tuck Victoria into her small bed each night, set up in the broken down sunroom out the back, where she frequently feared what might get her one evening through the cracks, only protected in her sanctuary by a rusted lock and a single lamp. It meant entering the house, and meeting Jett with an almost drained brown bottle, and whilst he’d smile at Jacob in reassurance - it was nights like those that ruined the brotherly bond they had built between them. Going home meant facing the reality that the church hid away from him.

 

  Jacob had taken to sitting on the pub’s verandah steps on his way home, the only people still inhabiting the pub this late into the night being bushmen and tired shift workers. He’d remain there, undisturbed by all except for the barmaid when she snuck him a beer or two, maternally rubbing his shoulder in a way Jacob never experienced elsewhere. Going to the pub wasn’t for a night in, it wasn’t for the jesting nor the merriment that radiated throughout the bluestone building. It was for the moments where Jacob could pretend to be normal and welcomed.

 

  He couldn’t see the differences between him and the workers that always spent their nights in the pub - he couldn’t see the differences the whiter men could. He found peace with them, they couldn’t tell the difference between his tan and theirs, nor did they didn’t question why he could speak some of their language. His natural demeanor wasn’t portrayed as alien like it was amongst his community, but he found it rather common with these European outcasts - he could be comfortable with them. He was a new family member to add to their growing list. 

 

  That was what Santino had claimed of him the prior week, his face still sweaty after running around after cattle all day, hands shaky and filthy, but the grubbiness of his appearance was easily overlooked in preference of the beautiful way he smiled. Santino was a statement piece at Dave’s pub, an attraction that brought more woman to the bar than ever before. His accent was thick, his eyes stunning, and his English barely legible - and Jacob loved listening to him ramble, as he always did every Saturday prior. The outback of Australia was interesting to the foreign teenager, just as much as Jacob was interested in him back. 

 

  Santino carried himself with such positivity that it was increasingly infectious, no matter the gnawing fact that he was a man that stood for everything that Jacob didn’t. He was sin, but it was refreshing - it lightened up Jacob’s world a little bit every time they spoke, no matter that it found Jacob in confessional more often than not. It wasn’t the heavy shadow haunting himself, nor the sin that consumed his blood and created an ill name for the Smith family. It was light-hearted sin, a fictitious element Jacob couldn’t imagine himself ever bearing.

 

  The other two Vargas siblings weren’t as exciting, Jacob could begrudgingly admit. Feliciano was a soft-spoken young man, who acted more childish than Victoria would, and was almost always found with a little smudge of paint in his hair or on his clothes. A mess with feet, Santino had once referred to him, unable to keep in his bubbling laugh at the thought. Whilst Lovino was a stark contrast to the both of them, with uncannily bleached blonde hair and the scarred body of a veteran that whispered all the stories he himself would never speak of. No one really spoke to Lovino, although. 

 

  “Sometimes I think he was replaced during the war…” Santino would jest openly - but his eyes spoke it all. The bleached hair, and the flamboyance of his bravado wasn’t normal according to him, but Jacob liked that about Lovino. He could appreciate a man who didn’t stick to the social normalities - who loved himself so thoroughly, no matter what his siblings thought of him. Jacob could only imagine what that freedom was like. What it would be like to embrace himself that way - and step outside of what this little town wanted of him. 

 

  But that’d have to wait another day. The pub had a very distinct absence of the Vargas brothers, and the clock was ticking by. He could have used the foreign tales and extravagant exaggerations to fill in his time, but his procrastination had come to an end. Jacob took a sip of his final beer, and stood on his feet firmly - relaxation escaping and tension filling his limbs like poison. He gave his glass back to the barmaid, where she kissed him on the cheek and sent him off on his way, and he found himself plunged into darkness again. 

 

  It wasn’t a long walk home, even shorter from the pub, but Jacob had taken his time. The crickets soothed him a little, and the moon dutifully reflected off the water of the lake nearby,  disguising the thick red sludge and overgrowth with an luminescent glow. An absolute disaster he couldn’t help but notice. Maybe others found it pretty, he knew Jett sure did, but Jacob found it scenically poor. On the outside it was gorgeous, and was romantic to the untrained eye, but the closer anyone got the more it lost its appeal. What was so attractive about a dirty, littered, and unkempt body of water? The moon was happy to love the lake, just as the lake was happy to be a centerpiece, no matter how pathetic it was. The very idea haunted Jacob every step home. 

 

  “Jacob fucking Smith, where have you been?” Jett called, standing at the door - brown bottle in hand, and another fisting at his own tank-top. “It’s a quarter past midnight, and Baptiste was looking for you!” 

 

_ Of course _ . Jacob rolled his eyes, but smiled up to his brother all the same - if he avoided looking at the bottle, he could pretend his heart wasn’t beating rapidly, could pretend that Jett didn’t know exactly where he’d been. The thought that their French neighbour had taken the time out of his day to look for him was warming, and he knew - no matter how much Jett would deny it - that his older brother had been waiting up for him out of concern too and not duty. He had probably sat out in the overbearingly hot night, sweaty and sticky, just waiting for him to return home. It wasn’t safe for boys like him to be outside, no matter how many people claimed the world was different after the war. He was too  _ much  _ of everything he wished he was more of.

 

  He didn’t have his brothers broader nose, nor tanned skin. He wasn’t strong or sturdy, and he didn’t have his carefree, distinct smile. He was lucky to not have these things, Jett insisted, but Jacob didn’t feel it. He wanted everything Jett had, and more. Even if it meant he wasn’t safe, it meant he had a little piece of home with him everywhere - the home he  _ wanted _ . 

 

  “I’m sorry- I got side-tracked and-” 

 

  “Just come here” Jett embraced Jacob in close, the strain between them finally easing away with each passing second. “You scared me and Vic, mate. Stop doing that.” 

 

  With a firm pat on the back Jett led Jacob into their home, shutting and locking the door behind blindly, the only light in the room coming from a single lamp on by the couch. It never did feel very alive for a living room, how could it when the couches were second-hand and worn, the tables held up barely and mended with glue or tape, and mold decorating the poorly painted popcorn ceiling. How could it even be considered living when no one ever was home. “Hey Jett… Where’s Ma?”

 

  “At Nana’s, Baptiste stayed and made dinner though, c’mon…” Further into the small home was the forever cold kitchen - a relief on hot summer days, but an absolute nightmare for Jacob, who felt cold just from his tire and overall dread. The cool tiles seeped into his body as he sat down at the table, Jett meeting him with a creak of his chair, and a sigh deep from the depths of his chest. He couldn’t even touch the left over food, no matter how amazing Baptiste had surely prepared the meal, he was sure he’d bring it back up. It hurt too much to breath, let alone swallow, and it only made everything worse having Jett there, especially when his body displayed so explicitly that he was uncomfortable. With trembling hands he re-tied his hair back into the loose ponytail, the only object of freedom he seemed to have under this roof.  “Can we talk?”

 

  “Are we not?”

 

  Jett grunted dismissively, reaching over and placing a hand over Jacob’s wrist, thumb pressed against the webbing of his hand with a gentle, familiar stroke. “You’re killing yourself with all of this. God’s all loving is he not?” 

 

  “Oh, Jett… could we not?”  _ Could we not? _ Jacob always asked that question, desperate to escape these confrontations. Jett always acted like he knew what was best for him - he always did this! But the answers never changed, nor did their positions, nor opinions, nor did their relationship change. The frequency of these talks drove Jacob absolutely ballistic, especially when it always ended the same; somehow, Jacob would find himself cornered by his brother, his hand gently encased, and the stench of alcohol stained on their breaths. It was more often than not that tears tended to paint Jacob’s face. “You know I only-”

 

  “Every single thought you have won’t upset the  _ thing  _ up there, Jake. Not every lil’ fucken thing will put you in hell.” 

 

  “It’s my comfort…” He whispered, unable to retract his hand from the others grip. He felt hollow - his brother always bore through him like this with only a sentence. “If there is a big man up there, isn’t it better to be safer than sorry? If there’s happiness after this life at least I’ll get it. I could be like Ma-” 

 

 Jett shook his head in disagreement, but didn’t say much more. He had drained his bottle, his eyes staring out into nothing, exhausted of this conversation already. The clock ticked on somewhere, enunciating the precious time they were wasting in silence. “You can be lost, and still believe you’re happy Jacob. If anyone’s going to hell, it’ll be me. I can’t repent for the things I’ve done-” 

 

  He swallowed his tongue, and the rest of the sentence remained unspoken. It was silent, the only sound being a drip from somewhere in the house, and a quiet little creak of the floorboards under pressure. Nothing more needed to be said with an admission as such, and the two knew it so well by now.  

 

  Jacob didn’t look up when Jett moved, nor did he look at him when he went into the lounge, rummaging through whatever he was. His eyes stayed on his wrist, even when he felt Jett suddenly tease a hand through his hair, playing with it like he had when they were children and oblivious to the pain surrounding them, blind to the agony between them alone. He stroked his hair maternally, in a way Jacob had learnt to stroke Victoria’s himself before school every morning, filling in for the affection the little girl was missing, like Jett had done for him. It wasn’t fair on them, and Jett was growing to hate the very thought of Jacob’s ‘comfort’ - and the destruction it was causing his brother. He was beginning to hate this ‘saving grace,’ when it hurt his brother like this. Jacob knew his brother hated everything the church stood for, even when it was the only positive they had left.

 

  With a small shift of the hair tie, Jett placed something in Jacob’s hair, stabilising it delicately. “Don’t dwell on it too much, and go rest… love you kiddo.” 

 

  Jett left in silence as Jacob removed the flower from his hair, gently stroking the soft petals of the pristine white lily that Baptiste had surely brought over earlier in the night for Victoria. The simple gesture of affection was enough to bring Jacob into little, stifled, hiccuped tears.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As a disclaimer,  
> This story is based off the ask blog I ran, for the 7 Sins 7 Virtues AU owned by Ro (otherwise known as Facade-P on tumblr.) Whilst it is heavily removed from the lore of the said storyline, it is important that I remind you of such - as themes that detail Christianity, concepts of sin, and even the crack-pairing is all very, very important, and might seem blandly outlandish without prior knowledge. If you sat through the ask-blog, you might have picked up on the heavy clues, and the heavy insinuations I left within the storyline.  
> So yes. This story will follow Jacob Smith (Hutt River) - a man who is battling his sins, and becomes the virtue of Chastity in an unconventional way. Alcoholism, homophobia (internalised and externalised,) Period/Location appropriate racism, and very brief allusions to childhood sexual assault will be prominent. You have been warned here. Nothing graphic is mentioned, you might pick that up with how I write things, but I want you to be aware this is what is being tackled.  
> I hope you enjoy - and if you’re here from the old blog, I am grateful to see you again. I hope this finally fills in the gaps I left you all waiting for.


End file.
